As the Wall Street Journal reports in its quarterly review today (subscription required), investment and universal banks’ securities underwriting activity over the past three months has fallen to levels not seen since the last few months of 2008.
Stock and bond securities issuance was down 33 percent from the same period last year. Even as they take a hit on underwriting, banks may have run into trouble with their trading-profits strategy of borrowing cheap to push up bond prices, too, as the bond-market rally seems to have lost steam.
The stock market isn’t doing so great, either, meaning few IPOs and few private-equity deals (private-equity investors’ “exit strategy” from illiquid deals is often a booming stock market).
If the trend holds up in the summer — and summer is not generally Wall Street’s most optimistic season — look for lower-than-expected profits from Wall Street’s banks, and another corporate and personal-income tax slump for New York.
A queasy bond market is bad news, too, for state and local governments, as they try to refinance debt against the backdrop of their own big deficits as well as Washington’s.
You may also like
Albany’s New Health Insurance Tax Comes with Few Limits
The newly enacted state budget imposes a multibillion-dollar tax on health insurance without specifying who must pay how much – leaving those basic details to be decided later by the health commissioner in negotiation wit Read More
One of New York’s Biggest Medicaid Contractors Is Quietly Acquiring a Competitor
Author's note: This post has been updated to correct an error in the second paragraph.
As state lawmakers debate the future of Medicaid home care, one of the program's bigg Read More
The Union Gave Them the Wrong Data. The Pols Cited It Anyway.
The episode shows the extent to which New York elected officials fail to question the state’s public employee unions—or look at data themselves. Read More
New York’s Home Health Workforce Jumped by 12 Percent in One Year
New York's home health workforce has continued its pattern of extraordinary growth, increasing by 62,000 jobs or 12 percent in a single year, according to newly released data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Read More
While New York’s Medicaid Budget Soared, Public Health Funding Languished
Four years after a devastating pandemic, the state has made no major investment to repair or improve its public health defenses.
While funding for Medicaid over the past four years Read More
Unions are pressing bogus arguments for blowing up NY’s public pension debts
New York's public employee unions are arguing, without evidence, that state lawmakers need to retroactively sweeten the pensions of workers who have been on the job for more than a decade. In fact, state and federal data show why state lawmakers shouldn't. Read More
A Medicaid Grant Recipient Sponsors a Pro-Hochul Publicity Campaign
While much of the health-care industry is attacking Governor Hochul's Medicaid budget, at least one organization is rallying to her side: Somos Community Care, a politically active medical group in the Bronx that recently r Read More
New Jersey’s Pandemic Report Shines Harsh Light on a New York Scandal
A recently published independent review of New Jersey's pandemic response holds lessons for New York on at least two levels.
First, it marked the only serious attempt by any state t Read More